Isolation and Characterization of a Wound-inducible Ribonuclease from Nicotiana glutinosa Leaves

A wound-inducible ribonuclease (RNase NW) was purified from leaves of Nicotiana glutinosa. The purified RNase NW has an optimum pH around 5 and 7, and its base specificity is suggested based on the relative rates of hydrolysis of homopolyribonucleotides to be a preference for guanine base. The complete amino acid sequence of RNase NW was deduced by a combination of protein and cDNA sequencings. The cDNA sequence includes the entire coding sequence for a polypeptide with 229 amino acids including a putative secretion signal peptide at the N-terminus composed of 25 amino acids. The amino acids identified by the protein chemical methods are unambiguously localized within the deduced amino acid sequence from the cDNA sequence. Comparison of the sequence of RNase NW with those of other known plant RNases showed that it was identical except for eight residues to that of N. alata RNase NE, which is present in the style and pollen under normal conditions and is induced in roots in response to phosphate starvation [Dodds et al., Plant. Mol. Biol., 31, 227-238 (1996)]. RNase NW shows considerable sequence similarity to other known RNases, sharing 57% to 84% identical residues. Northern blot analysis using an RNase NW cDNA fragment as a probe showed that the RNase NW transcript was not detected in leaves without wounding, but it was induced within 4 h after wounding and then gradually decreased during 20 h.